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The Nutty Professor
TL;DR: At the bottom Long Version: The party began by investigating the ravaged corpse of a man, found in a culvert. His body showed signs of violent trauma, the head having been removed. The group followed a gully running upstream of the culvert where his body was discovered, significant rainfall over the past week had washed it down from somewhere upstream. After a soggy journey to the outskirts of Travencall, the adventurers were greeted by a pack of feral dogs who were feasting on some remains. After dispatching the beasts and subduing one into servitude, the group was able to determine that the creatures' meal was actually a mass grave of men and women, all of whom had similar wounds as that of the first body which had washed down the gully, and none of which had their heads. Most bodies were impossible to identify due to their advanced state of decomposition and/or lack of heads/faces. Among the possessions on the corpses were a poem/ballad, a tabard of religious significance worn by clerics of Saranrae, and a dagger indicated to be popular among warlocks in Travencall. Upon the dagger was a pair of runes whose meaning could not be ascertained by the members of the group.'' The dagger was brought to a local weapon shop, the proprietor nervously indicated that the runes on the weapon indicated its former owner was affiliated with the ''Shadow Cartel. ''The shop owner warned about the dangers of this organization and began shooing us immediately from his establishment, insisting that the cartel would kill us all if we knew about them or dared to speak their name. Naturally the only course of action was to go travel around the streets of Travencall yelling "HEY SHADOW CARTEL!" As would be expected, the cartel caught up with the adventurers in a shady abandoned alley. A cart was pulled to block the party's forward progress, and 5 cloaked thugs appeared their backs. The thugs pointed out the foolish nature of even speaking the name of their organization, forcing a careful choice of words to avoid a conflict. Negotiations began between the group and the thugs leading to the thugs scraping the runes off the hilt of the weapon, and the negotiations ended once the de-runed dagger of interest was returned to the party and then subsequently plunged into the stomach of their shady leader... After dispatching these urchins, the party became focused on a missing girl from the University named Anna, a brilliant student of Professor Archibald. Anna was studying magic at the University and was mentoring under the professor. After questioning the professor in his office about Anna, he revealed that he "barely knew her" outside of their work. It was noted that writings on his desk dealt primarily with his interest in Dark Ones and Old Gods. The Heroes later learned that the professor spent a great deal of time with Anna and she spent much of her free time with him. Realizing the professor was full of it, the party focused the investigation on him. The professor's college study was fruitlessly investigated, and he was followed to his home. The party failed to get him out of his home by ding-dong ditching, using flaming bags of crap, and throwing boulders through his windows. After he left for work the following morning, the group (Roi, Colton, and Marek) gained access to his home by posing as investigators to members of his servant staff while Sildae? was attending class. The 3 made their way to his personal study where they picked the lock with an 18 strength check. The study revealed much of the same things that were discovered in his college office, namely works about old gods and dark ones. A secret door was discovered behind the book case. Roi worked on fighting the secret-bookcase-door-boss while the rest of the group searched for a clue to open it properly. Colton's ability to read infernal from a mysterious text lead to the keyword (the name of an evil god) to speak into the figurine which opened the now barely-working secret door. While Colton, Roi and Marek Descended into the lair behind the secret Door, Sildae? was at the college and met up with the professor attempting to glean information from him. She made attempts to bring him to the bar in order to seduce him. Unbeknownst to her, he was revealed to be gay (but lets be real, rolling a nat 20 would have made RP'ing that encounter ''very interesting ). Sildae learned that the professor was extremely interested in living side by side with the dark ones, and espoused a belief that they deserved to not be mistrusted or feared and he encouraged her to join him in his studies. His interest in her was particularly focused on her abilities as a magic user... Meanwhile the 3 adventurers found 2 dark ones along with pools of fetid blood (presumably from previous victims) within the secret lair at the bottom of the stairwell. The dark ones were not affected significantly by magic attacks levied against them. As the fight concluded, the party had killed 1 dark one, and had locked another within one of the many cells lining the walls of the dungeon. Both would serve as evidence against the professor whose writings would implicate him in a scheme to use the deaths of magic users in order to further his studies to find ways to give dark ones resistance to magic. The party alerted the city guard to the dangers within his home, and led a troop to confront him at the University, where he was manacled and arrested while the city guard investigates him. He would have gotten away with it too if it wasn't for us meddling adventurers and our newly acquired dog. TL:DR The party identified that professor Archibald from the University was able to control Dark Ones, and had begun experimenting on them, and has been successful in finding a way to imbue them with magical resistance. The cost of granting them resistance requires using the disembodied heads of magic users to fuel the process. Thanks to the party, the professor sits in the custody of the city guard, and his laboratory/study is under investigation.